


The Wolf Alone

by Katalyna_Rose



Series: Vhenan AU [25]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Aging, Angst, Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-01 19:54:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15150641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katalyna_Rose/pseuds/Katalyna_Rose
Summary: The mortality of those he loves is the worst sort of torture for an immortal. Watching his family age and die is the worst pain Solas has ever known, but he will bear it for her, until there's nothing left but dust and ruin and the pain in his chest.





	The Wolf Alone

He saw her take her first breaths in this world. Plump and perfect, she had so much of her mother in her. It gladdened him, and he didn't realize at the time as he held the squalling babe that it would be cause for despair.

He held her hands as she learned to walk, her mother watching with a smile as she rubbed what was left of her left arm, as she often would. She babbled happily and wrapped her little arms tight around her mother so she could be lifted into the air and congratulated on her skill. It might have been the happiest he'd ever been, but he felt that way every day anymore.

Time passed strangely for him, each day an eternity but so many of them packed into such a small space in his consciousness. Her mother's hair was turning gray. He hadn't seen it until it nearly covered her head. She was so beautiful but now it was harder to ignore her mortality, which he still did not share. What would he give to keep her with him?

There was no answer that would save her. He sat at her bedside, looking the same as he always had, their daughter grown and sitting beside him. Some part of him had been preparing for this since the day they met but he could never be truly prepared. She whispered her love to them and he could only apologize. For not finding a way, for how short her life had been. But no, he must not think that way. She wanted him to be happy and remember her fondly, not as another reminder of his failures. He held her hand until it grew cold.

He had his daughter still. She told him he was gaunt, tried to make him eat, sleep, take care of himself. But the effort seemed so much for so little in return. He preferred to draw her. The face of his heart in every expression. He drew her over and over and over so that he would not forget. He refused to forget. He preserved the images in magic so that the charcoal would not fade with time. She would be immortalized by his hand. It was all he could do for her now.

His daughter didn't stop aging. Somehow it hadn't occurred to him that she would be too much like her mother. Her mother's eyes and hair and laughter. He loved that about her. But now also her mother's weakness, and her end. And there was nothing he could do.

He stayed with her, nearby, as she grew older. A family of her own, and the children called him uncle and it tore at his heart because he was not. He was their grandfather, but he did not look it.

She did not pass as easily as his beloved. She was coughing, in pain, and her healer put her to sleep to take her final breath so that she would not hurt.

The pain of her passing was worse. But there was no one there to remind him to eat and sleep and care for himself. He drew her, too, but it ached ever more than her mother. He was so alone.

He watched after her children. He didn't know what else to do with himself. But he despaired even as he smiled for them, for their children. Was this all he was anymore? A mysterious figure always looking after his progeny? They couldn't remember anymore how he was related to them. He was simply there. But how long would it be until they didn't allow him into their homes and their lives and he was forced to look on from afar? How long until his line died out entirely? None of them had his long life, so it would happen eventually. Such was the nature of mortality.

Once his family urged him to find a new love, so he had told them the story of the last love he would ever have. Three generations of his children's children's children had gathered for the story of the Inquisitor who had loved the Dread Wolf, gazed at the likeness of her he has lovingly drawn, but to them it was only a story, only words, and the ache in his heart did not reach them.

He buried those children with his own hands when plague took them. And then there was nothing left for him at all, no more family to watch over and care for. He was empty and lost. So he went to sleep and prayed that his body would die and he could find her again, the one woman who had made him feel alive.


End file.
